Fatboy Slim Remembers When SHM & Sven Vath Got Into A Fight About EDM

Although Norman Cook has been in the music scene in one fashion or another since the late ’70s, his most popular Fatboy Slim moniker was only created in 1996. However, since then, he has gone on to create some of the most viral and well-known tracks of our generation, including “Praise You,” “Right Here, Right Now,” and the ever infectious “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat.”

Throughout his tenure as a world-class musician, Fatboy Slim has traveled the globe on tour and on festival lineups. In a recent interview with Redbull Australia, Norman recounts one of his most vivid memories from his last tour in Australia back in 2012.

[T]he highlight last time was witnessing this fight between Swedish House Mafia and Sven Vath outside a restaurant in Sydney. That’s my overriding memory.

The interviewer, obviously taken aback by this revelation, clearly felt the need to ask for more clarification and so he did. Norman answers that it obviously wasn’t a real fight, no one got into fisticuffs, it was more of a comedy. The two were arguing over the legitimacy of EDM versus house purism.

EDM outgunned the house purism but on the moral higher ground it was probably Sven.

Norman thinks that mainstage EDM is a good thing, overall, in that interest in other styles of electronic music creates a trickle down effect. Those familiar with economics are aware of the term (and how little it seems to apply in today’s economy), though its applicability in “EDM” is probably more useful. We’ve even pushed our own opinion on this matter before, when it was brought up by Seth Troxler.

Still, we keep coming back to the vision of Swedish House Mafia and Sven Vath hashing it out over which is better and what that might have looked like… if only.

Lover of all bass music. I'm not afraid to speak my mind and put it to paper, and I do it often. I call Los Angeles my home, there's no better place for emerging EDM. Get in touch with me more via email or Twitter.